


Just So, and No Clearer

by tessiete



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canonically Obi-Wan Likes Poetry, Con-Langs, F/M, Fanonically he's a poet, Guys I don't know, Korkie Kryze is a Kenobi, No beta we die like good soldiers, Obi-Wan Kenobi Gets a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obitine discord September Prompt Challenge: GIFT, a tiny bit of masturbation, fade to black smut, fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessiete/pseuds/tessiete
Summary: The first poem arrives on Mandalore before she does. It is a Stewjoni poem. Or, half of one.Her reply, which she’d puzzled out with his help as a girl, comes to her as fresh and as foreign as it had then, and she’s nearly halfway to sending it back when she stops. This poem is not meant for her. The words he expects are old, and she no longer belongs to them the same way that this poem is no longer his to share. They are not children. They are not sweethearts. They are, as he said, only friends. Why should she answer as his lover ought? What does he mean by asking? And how could he be so cruel…ORObi-Wan writes Satine poetry because he can't articulate his feelings. She's tired of no follow through.**Ch.6 UPDATE: Notes & Poems, bc I like process. Sorry.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze
Comments: 58
Kudos: 126





	1. Katauta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [newanon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newanon/gifts).



> I had a whole month to write this. I only wrote poems. Now, in five days, I shall try to write the actual story. I don't know friends, just trust me. 
> 
> Also, I should say that I owe  treescape  from whom I stole lines, and Qui-Gon's home planet. And [new-anon](https://new-anon.tumblr.com/) who has continually inspired me with gorgeous images, and drew Korkie with his parents to my eternal delight so, thanks all. 
> 
> I'm [tessiete](https://tessiete.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.

* * *

_Alone the sun leaps  
_ _A fruit sweet, and heavy high_   
_And hunger wakes to meet it  
_

_\- O.W.K._

**I.**

The first one arrives on Mandalore before she does.

She’s hardly off the ship, still dressed in senatorial garb, still picking petals from her hair when she’s confronted by her advisor at the dock. He hands her the pad with a frown, and a stiff back that says he expects her displeasure.

“I’ll take it in my room,” she says, pushing the pad back. His shoulders drop in relief as he taps the screen, rerouting the transmission to her personal device. It’s been a long flight, a longer trip, and she doesn’t quite feel equal to reading it yet. Certainly not equal to reading it in public.

Instead, she thinks she’s rather earned a bath - not a sonic, but a real bath. A luxury she often denies herself, despite her status, for the scarcity of resources on Mandalore. Though they are a reasonably affluent people, they don’t have the beauties of nature to waste. Not anymore. And so she savours this. 

She draws it herself, letting it run until the water is deep enough to submerge her up to her chin. She adds powdered moof milk from Cerea, and dried avendula flowers from Ithor, and with the assistance of her girl, she slips from the heavy brocade of court dress into the freedom of her own bare flesh, and steps into the bath. A peace settles over the room once the ripples have calmed, and she feels her heart calm with them.

Its beat is slow and steady until she closes her eyes, and turns into her thoughts. Behind her lashes, fretted with the golden haze of recent memory, she sees him. Copper, and blue. The soft folds of his robes, the hard line of his mouth. His brow furrowed in the same deep strokes that she’s drawn over and over again in her most indulgent, and least forgivable fancies. 

She thinks of sixteen years, and thinks of distance, and thinks of how the moment she saw him she was eighteen again, and eighty. There was so much to be said for the intervening years, and yet what came to her lips was mostly bitterness, and rancor, the perversion of time under steady contemplation like a worm in the bud, eating away at truth until each moment together was an eon, and every second since an eternity. 

And in the end, when the infinite became measurable by the inches between them in a dark corridor, she spoke of love.

What a fool.

And foolish still, to press him further until he confessed the same. Or nearly. Or near enough for wishful thinking to understand as much.

_We’re friends, are we not?_

She sighs, and sinks until the water rises over her mouth, over her nose, rushing into her ears so that all sound is muffled. But his voice lives permanently within her, and she can still hear him rattling around her skull.

_Any person would be hysterical._

Hysterical. And why shouldn’t she be? Her planet in danger of occupation. Her reputation blighted with the accusation of attempted murder. Her own life threatened - lost, if not for Master Kenobi. Why shouldn’t she be hysterical? Why wasn’t he? 

All this, and still he gives all his loyalty to the Republic. To the Jedi. Even Senator Amidala - _Padme -_ even she, from whose planet the Chancellor himself hailed, even _she_ could see the folly of the Senate’s greed, its thirst for power, its hunger for planetary domination. Even she could sense the tragedy awaiting Mandalore if it should lose its neutrality.

But Obi-Wan could not. Would not. Everything for the Republic.

And nothing at all for her.

She rolls her eyes, allowing the motion to take her under the surface. Around her, her hair billows in mossy reeds as she tries to drown him out. The infuriating man. 

_You’re just as impossible_ , her mind scolds. _Just as consumed with fantasy. Just as naive, and wilfully so. Reduced to brooding in bath tubs over a Jedi._

Her chest aches, though she can’t be certain if it is her lungs or heart, and she breaks the surface with a gasp.

_Ridiculous._

She huffs, blowing water from her lips, and pushes her hair back against her scalp, the dreaminess of submerged locks now exchanged for the severe lines of dampened gravity. 

“Maia,” she calls, her waiting girl never far out of sight. “Would you bring me my private commpad, please?”

Best to get it over with.

A brief shuffling behind closed doors, and then Maia appears between the slats. 

“My lady?” she says, announcing her presence.

“Come in, come in,” Satine urges. She reaches out, her hands dripping over the marbleplast floor.

Maia first hands her a towel, and then, when her hands are dry, passes over the slim datapad.

“Thank you,” Satine says, and with a nod, the girl takes the towel and is gone.

Alone once more, the Duchess steels herself, and flicks the screen to life. One message. From the personal datapad of High Councilor, Jedi Master, and High General of the Grand Army of the Republic Obi-Wan Kenobi, received at fourteen hundred hours, Sundari Standard Time. On the hour. How precise, she thinks, and tries not to read into it.

The message itself is short, when she finally cajoles herself into opening it. Only a few lines in - for a moment she stumbles. It’s been years since she’s encountered the language, but the structure and the style give it away. 

**A-saiyo ge’hai  
** **Amai-ku, sho kyoama  
** **Da-ue ne g’ae**

It’s a Stewjoni poem.

Or rather, it’s half of one, typical of this form which is reserved for lovers. A sort of call and response. The first verse poses a problem, and the second provides a solution. Or a rejection. It’s traditional to old courting rituals, rarely observed anymore, but not forgotten, and there is a civility in it, she thinks, in that the petitioner may be softly refused without a loss of dignity or grace. She recalls Obi-Wan saying something similar long ago, when he first showed her the form. When he first wrote this verse for her.

Her reply, which she’d puzzled out with his help as a girl, comes to her as fresh and as foreign as it had then, and she’s nearly halfway to sending it back when she stops. This poem is not meant for her. The words he expects are old, and she no longer belongs to them the same way that this poem is no longer his to share. They are not children. They are not sweethearts. They are, as he said, only friends. Why should she answer as his lover ought? What does he mean by asking? And how could he be so cruel…

She swallows back her grief, and deletes the message. The war still rages. Death Watch still waits. And there are more pressing matters to deal with.


	2. Ballad

* * *

_If you in youth my love returned,  
And so my own did tell,  
Then though we are yet parted now,  
Be safe, and be you well. _

_\- O.W.K._

**II.**

A week passes - nearly two, though if she were to be asked Satine is not convinced she could say precisely how many days have been spent locked inside close chambers, in council with her advisors. A new fear bleeds into the eyes of her people, as Death Watch creeps ever nearer, their kal sharp and ready to pierce even the fiercest defense of her government.

As the terrorist threat looms, her advisors petition for greater security measures. But not for her state, or her people - for _her_.

“You are the idol of Peace, my lady Duchess,” says one. “The figurehead for your government. It is of paramount importance that -” He hesitates, as though to speak his fear would make it true.

So she braves it for him.

“That I not be slaughtered in the streets?” she suggests.

Her advisor bows his head, grief imagined nearly as heavy and shameful as if it were real, and another man, a Rook, speaks in his stead.

“Worse still, in your home,” he says. “What we’re requesting is not an elimination or a lessening of the measures already in place for civilians, only greater measures for yourself.”

“Well, if I am so much to our cause, it’s a wonder that we have yet to consider my death in a more positive light,” she says. The day is late, the sun sliding ever closer to the horizon as time from her fingers, and she feels worn thin, and frayed. “Perhaps we might see more success if I were simply to be martyred outright.”

Her counsellors do not see the humour in it, and they fall into tones of outrage and denial. She sighs, giving over to the clamour, and in the end she finds herself saddled with an increased personal guard, and a curfew. Her serving girl, Maia, is also deemed unfit to tend her alone, and so she, too, gains a more warlike companion. Satine concedes to having her near, this new soldier - a graduate of Korkie’s own academy - but she will not have her armed within the palace of Sundari. Instead, the only weapons this most intimate bodyguard will bear are her hands. To a traditionally trained Mandalorian, they are as deadly as any blade.

It is a compromise. One she can live with, and one her counsellors believe she cannot live without. 

Maia will wonder. She may take it as a sign of mistrust, but Satine will do her best to explain...only...perhaps, tomorrow.

By the time she returns to her apartments, her new attendant, Vi’Tolan Wyx, is stationed outside the door. She follows her in without waiting for permission, moving to secure the room, to seek out bugs, or stars forbid, explosive devices. Maia, by her grace, says nothing, but takes the velvet robe from Satine’s shoulders, and pushes her to sit.

Before her mirror, Satine is undone by practiced fingers. Pins come loose, and her hair tumbles from its precise coils. The headpiece, made of claricrystalline and precious gems, is lifted from her brow, though its impression still leaves a groove just below her hairline.

“Another message came for you while you were in session, my lady,” says Maia.

“Oh?” She asks, and is not immediately suspicious.

But Maia meets her eyes in the glass, just long enough for Satine to understand her meaning, and she closes her eyes. Her shoulders straighten, and she keeps a tight hold on the Duchess that she may withstand one more trial for the day. The datapad lies beside her, Maia anticipating her desire before she can speak it, and she pulls it close.

This time, the poem is new, though the sentiment - the blessing - is very old. Another ghost. Another whisper from the past.

**Yo ś¨i nä nuoruus ¨ ka î ma li aër  
Lu ś in an¨åm æ  
Vaikka næ olemm å eros ¨ sa  
Liä na ma¨ræ **

**Yos t¨yarälipu autaa et  
l¨aîn śo maî laantæ  
Mæ lähdiin în¨sån, n¨amiśin _  
_Liä na ma¨ræ**

**Yos mæ ettäis å n i¨matoaa  
Na s å n tuulo hæ  
Mæ ś oi ¨ ai ś in tuu ¨ ka ¨ a  
Liä na ma¨ræ **

**Yos inä olî toiś¨idan  
Sydäma¨i rimæ  
Mukaa¨ma śil¨aan siona  
Liä na ma¨ræ **

**A ¨y os on korke ¨ m äi s å ra  
Ma ¨ ma ś täy mennä g æ  
Viim ś iet mæ¨ovat sinua beth  
Liä na ma¨ræ **

  
  


_Liä na ma¨ræ_

She mouths the words, letting them fall over her lips like song, or rain. It is not Obi-Wan who taught her this phrase. It is not he who spoke them first.

This is the language of Lira. This is the tongue of Qui-Gon Jinn, and this phrase…

_Be safe_ , it says. _Be well._

She’d heard it in a poem, once. In an old flimsi chapbook that Qui-Gon carried around. Late at night when the light of a fire would give them away, and their pads had no charge, sometimes he would read to them. To her. And his padawan.

“It is a blessing,” he’d said, laughing as she’d repeated the phrase clumsily. “A wish for happiness, and safe travels.”

But when she’d repeated it to him a few weeks following, as he’d left them in their makeshift shelter to go hunting about for supplies, he’d laughed again, grabbing her by the shoulders and dropping into a keldabe kiss to soothe the sting of his correction.

“No, my girl,” he’d said, and in some ways she’d felt very much his, taken to his care in the wake of her father’s death. “That is not the phrase for me.”

“But I wish you to come back to us,” she’d said. “I wish you to be safe.”

“And so I shall. But that line is for someone else.”

“What do you mean?”

He’d smiled at her then, soft and fond. 

“It is intimate,” he explained. “It is often associated with passion. It is for something precious, and unique. Something dear beyond measure.”

She’d frowned, confused, because was that not how she’d intended it? But Qui-Gon left her to her bafflement, returning later that evening laden with food, and new intelligence, and when he left again the next day, she’d bit her tongue, saying nothing instead.

But then, there’d been a day some weeks later, when bounty hunters had come too close, and she could see the worry in Qui-Gon’s eyes as they ran. 

“Obi-Wan,” he’d said. “Lead them off, and we’ll reconvene at the rendezvous by day’s end.”

His padawan hadn’t hesitated, and neither had she. He lit his blade, and the words came tumbling from her lips in the brief look back he’d spared her.

“Liä na ma¨ræ.”

He’d smiled. He’d left, then. And she had meant every word.

And he knows this phrase. So surely, he must mean them now.

This poem, staring at her dimly from her datapad, is filled with regret. It speaks of parting, of loss, of death, of absence, and offers nothing but the assurance that she is precious to him. 

Perhaps it was meant as a release.

Perhaps it was meant as a comfort.

Perhaps he means to reassure her of their friendship, but these are not words for a friend, so why does he remind her of them now? Why does he send her this in the middle of the day? Why does he write it down at all?

Any other time, she might give over to outrage, to indignation. But she has already been spent in the battles of the day, so instead, she sends it to her archives, and sets the pad aside.

Vi’Tolan says nothing, standing sentinel in the dark corner by her door. Her face is turned aside, granting what little privacy she can, but Satine still feels exposed.

Maia says nothing, either, though she sees much more. She does not turn away, but rests her hand on Satine’s shoulder, and offers her a tissue to wipe the makeup from her face before it can be traced and lined with tears. Perhaps the salt streaks running through the caked powder will be cleansing, but Satine can only pity her reflection for its splintering facade.

  
  
  



	3. Six-Line Stave

* * *

_My heart a bloody blossom blooming,_   
_So spit upon her kal consuming,  
But lo! The drum is soon resuming,  
Beating out its part.   
A flower fair the air perfuming _   
_Love hath pierced my heart.  
_

_\- O.W.K._

III.

**Ner kar'ta tal'sarad sarad'la/  
** **Kadiilir d'kaysh kal epar'la/  
** **Su susulur te laar par taab'la/  
** **Laaran te miite/  
** **Go'klesin dinuir t'sarad mesh'la/  
Kair'kaysh ner kar'ta.**

She doesn’t even want to look at the verse, let alone contemplate it. She doesn’t want to think about a Mandalore best left to the past, she doesn’t want to see the way he ties love and death together, the way violence and passion can be made to look the same, the way he honours the traditions of a culture of self-destruction. Her culture.

_No._ She will not be made complicit. Not now.

Not with his spit and spend sitting subdued before her, blue eyes and furrowed brow watching her with anxious curiosity.

“Auntie Satine?”

The poem cannot be swept from her screen quickly enough, and the instant it disappears from her sight, she tosses the pad aside along with his words. Korkie sits before her, hunched over in a stiff backed chair while she paces, exorcising her terror.

“You took _far_ too many risks,” she scolds. “Far too many. I had not thought you so foolish as this entire _incident_ has demonstrated, but here we are. You’re just like your -”

Their eyes snap to each other, like an elastro band rebounding on itself, unable to escape the tension of some invisible force. She knows what he asks, she knows he must now begin to suspect - it has been the seedling of a thought grown in the dark of ignorance for several years now, bleached and feeble, but very much alive - and she shuts her mouth. The muscles of her jaw leap with words yet unsaid. They will remain unsaid.

She turns away, pressing thin fingers to her lips.

Behind her, the synthetic tendons of the chair creak as Korkie unfolds himself to stand.

“Auntie?” he says, the title an accession, and consolation even as it breaks her heart. He wraps his arms around her waist, resting his head against her back, between her shoulder blades, caught at that awkward height between boy and man. “Bic cuyir shi ni. Ogir cuyir nayc linibar at haaranovor.”

“Vi enteyor ratiin haaranovor,” she replies. “Now, more than ever. You do not know what we risk.”

His arms tense, and he whispers, as though he were her own conscience. “You could tell me.”

It is too close. He is too much alike. His voice, too…

She inhales sharply, and steps away. Her posture is regal and cold, and she turns to face him, looking down her nose, for he is subject to her the way all Mandalorians are. More, because she is more to him besides.

“No,” she says. “Not today.”

“It is never today,” he protests, throwing his arms wide and flinging off the thin mantle of maturity he so eagerly dons, and so easily discards these days. 

“And it is not likely to be tomorrow,” she retorts.

“Why not? Why can’t I know? Why won’t you claim me? What’s so shameful about me that you would rather me always somewhere else, living in ignorance, not calling myself by my buir’s name, not calling _you -”_

“Hush!” she says, though it races through her teeth as a hiss, sharply admonishing, with no effort to assuage his outrage. Instead it is catching, and she steps into his space, chin thrust forward so he might hear, and shoulders rounded so that no one else might. “You need to watch your tongue.”

“There’s no one here but us,” he hisses back. “Unless it’s me you do not trust.”

“Trust?” she laughs. “Oh, ner kih’kairkiyc, aalar be'vuty. There is no one that I trust.”

He looks shocked at that, and crestfallen as though she has stripped from him some thread from which he’d suspended much of his former pride. And perhaps she is cruel to say so, but she is hurt, and hunted, and terrified and always alone. He must understand that to be a ruler is to be alone. “Adiik, don’t you see? We have already been betrayed today by our closest, most honorable advisors. By our own government. We have betrayed ourselves to them. And in doing so, we have also betrayed each other.”

“Who -”

“There is more than one way to confess,” she says. “Treason is not only found in poisonous words, but sweet ones, too. Thoughts may be revealed not only through torture, but through kindness. Love reveals just as much as hate. More, because it craves reciprocation. It hungers for proof.”

“But I never said -”

“Almec knew to choose you.”

“I am your nephew,” he says, stout and loyal, as though this nobility of spirit is in his blood.

“And still, he _knew_ to choose _you_.”

Korkie says nothing. He only fidgets, twisting his fingers together, and running a contemplative hand across his jaw, his eyes troubled and distracted. But he cannot find any solution to this. He sighs, and his head drops. “I am sorry, Aunt Satine.”

“Do not be sorry,” she says. This time, when she steps near it is her arms that encircle him, yielding softly to the lines of his distress. “And do not think I am ashamed. Kiorkicek, you are all that I have left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:
> 
> "Bic cuyir shi ni. Ogir cuyir nayc linibar at haaranovor."... "It's only me. There is no need to hide."  
> "Vi enteyor ratiin haaranovor"... "We must always hide."  
> "Ner kih’kairkiyc, aalar be'vuty."... "My little sweetheart, don't think you're special."


	4. Ode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't forgot, you see! I'm just, you know, struggling IRL like everyone. But I love you! I WILL eventually reply - I ADORE comments, and you've all been so kind. I just...get so overwhelmed, and then anxious, and it's a whole thing but I WILL reply. And in the meantime, I adore reading all your thoughts and opinions, and yeah. Love you all.
> 
> Oh, we moved this up to a TEEN rating.

_Awake! And lift thy sleeping head,  
_ _In fair salute unto that sovereign sole,  
_ _Whose quick passions spill a blushing red,  
_ _So eager He thy beauties to extol.  
_ _And Nature, whom Herself begat you  
_ _Is stained with envy of thy grace  
_ _Which starry climes upon thy lifted face  
_ _Press their kissing lips of dew.  
_ _For all the beauty of the world is found  
_ _Petaled soft in thy milky gown.  
_

_\- O.W.K._

* * *

The next one comes right on the heels of the one before. A Coruscanti ode. It’s filthy, and has her blushing as she takes her throne to receive ambassadors from Celanon.

“Delete that,” she says to Maia, handing the pad back as she sits. Then just as decisively she calls her back. The girl returns, her hands cradling the device, and Satine masters herself. Her voice, when she speaks, is steady and imperious, untouched by the fire of the scribe. “Belay that, and save it. I shall attend to it later tonight.”

It’s much later, much darker when she is finally able to return to the pad, and its message, at rest from her duty but never relieved of it. Vi’Tolan precedes her into the room, then escorts her across the threshold. The lights are dimmed to a respectable gloaming, and Maia sleeps already, sprawled across the low pallet in the far corner of the room.

She sighs, not envious of her rest but indulgent of it. The girl is wild, and reckless in her unconsciousness, lying on her side, her arms flung out as though around an invisible bedmate, and her mouth open and young. Satine thinks she once slept like that, but it was long ago, now.

Her hair is already falling from its pins, so it is the work of only a few brief tugs to see it tumbling down into fuzzy, golden whorls. She struggles for a moment with her earrings before Vi’Tolan speaks.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” she offers.

“No, not at all,” Satine replies. It had not been a Chamber day, and so her dress is somewhat lighter, less elaborate than usual. “Thank you, Vi’Tolan. Perhaps, you’d like to attend to your own nighttime lavations. I promise I can manage alone, tonight.”

Vi’Tolan hesitates. She often hesitates when Satine suggests their separation, however brief, but oh, how she longs for a moment - a single moment - of solitude. Her guard knows it. Perhaps she longs for it herself, but her duty is stronger than her desire so she resists. Satine knows all about that.

“Thank you, ma’am,” she replies. “But if it’s all the same, I shall prepare here, and retire after you.”

“As you wish,” Satine murmurs. She runs her fingers through her hair, combing out the worst of the tangles. “I shall use the sonic then, while you see to yourself.”

“Very good.”

The sonic is warm, and yet the air within the chamber always feels thin. Brittle. As though it has been burnt too many times, and has been reduced to the delicacy of lace, fragile and rent with holes. It is a strange feeling, and she would much prefer a bath, but lacks the energy or frivolity tonight. A sonic will do. It is efficient, though it is not the same. She emerges from it clean, but never refreshed, like pressed linen.

The mirror watches as she drapes herself in a silken nightgown, the fabric falling over her like water. There are few curves, few soft lines for it to eddy in. She is made mostly of hard angles, and sharp limbs, only frown lines, and the first traces of faint wrinkles provide places for water to pool. Her fingertips are cool, as she presses them to the hollows beneath her eyes, trying to smooth away the flood of dark that seems to stagnate there, too. But the room is dimly lit, and it comes rushing back in.

Outside the ‘fresher, Vi’Tolan sits, patient, like loyal strill at the door. She rises as Satine returns, but the Duchess waves her off.

“Goodnight, Vi’Tolan,” she says. “Go to sleep.”

And with that, she slips between the icy sheets of her bed, the covers having been turned down hours before by an perspicacious Maia. _It is nice,_ she thinks, _to be anticipated. But it is lonely,_ she thinks, _to have that welcome grow cold._

She waits until the little lamp by Vi’Tolan’s mat goes out, and waits longer still, until she can hear her breathing go steady, and deep. Beyond the heavy curtains of her window, she imagines she can see the lights of the city going off, and the lights of the stars coming on in the dark velvet of space. 

By whatever divinity’s whimsy it is night in Capital City, too, though Coruscant and Mandalore share no sun. Nor a moon. Nor even the stars themselves, for the constellations appear very different in the Core, if they appear at all.

And perhaps, he isn’t even on Coruscant. Perhaps, he isn’t asleep. Perhaps, he’s awake. Perhaps, he’s in battle. Perhaps, he’s on his ship, perhaps, he’s in medbay. Perhaps, he’s injured, and beaten, and bleeding. Perhaps, he’s hurt, or dead, or gone, and she doesn’t even know it.

A gasp. She stifles it with a fist, her own hand smothering her fear into silence. But it’s not enough. She can hear her heart in her ears, and before her terror can claw its gasping, gnashing way out of her throat again, she needs to _move_. She throws back her covers, and they fall into a drift like leaves heavy with rain. Her feet are bare, but the floor is carpeted and bears her weight without complaint as she darts to the window, throwing back the curtains to see the sky.

It’s vast, and dark, and the tiny stars have no answers. Or if they do, she is too far away to hear them. But the glass does feel good against her forehead where she presses her brow against the pane, and there’s some comfort in being made to feel so small beneath such a large, and never ending expanse. Her breathing slows, and after a time, she can swallow back the gummy patina that coats the back of her throat. The nausea dims, and she turns her back to the window, the light of the moon throwing her shadow out across the floor towards her bed as though it, too, longs for rest. 

Vi’Tolan’s lamp flicks on.

“Ma’am?” she asks, her voice clouded with sleep, but consciousness returns to her warrior mind quickly, and she’s sitting up, and pushing aside her coverlet in the time it takes for Satine to steady herself. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, everything is fine. I was just...I wanted to see the stars. I’m sorry for disturbing you. Go back to sleep.”

Vi’Tolan lies down, but her lamp stays on, and her eyes stay open until Satine dutifully returns to her own pillows. She sinks into the plush mattress with a sigh, and pulls the heavy down up to her shoulders, rolling away so that Vi’Tolan is at her back and unable to read her expression even in the dark. Vi’Tolan waits, but Satine lies perfectly still, and finally, the lamp goes out once more. Across from her, Maia sleeps on in bliss.

There is a small table between her and her waiting girl, and as she turns her gaze from Maia’s unencumbered sleep, she spies her tablet sitting there upon the top. She stares at it, it’s little green charge light blinking cheerily back, the message it holds still waiting to be acknowledged. Quietly, so as not to disturb, she slides the device from its perch, and brings it to her bed. The blue light of the screen illuminates the confines of her room, and she draws the blanket over the screen to ensure her secrecy. No lamp comes on; Vi’Tolan doesn’t move.

She pulls up the poem.

Three verses. The first, sufficient in its praise, and adequate in its noble exultations as it pursues its ostensible aim of comparing a single lily to all the beauties of the cosmos.

The second is equally enthusiastic, equally chaste but for the inclusion of a _lonely night_. And suddenly, he’s there. And in the third, it is them. She reads him, and she comes undone beneath his hand.

**Which sacred force did think it wise,**   
**To leave thee bare to mortal eyes?**   
**Planted in thy untilled bed,**   
**Velvet folds to heaven spread,**   
**And lifted to the sky?**   
**Yet low the pilgrim’s hand which stirs thee soft,**   
**In plucking he might bring thee off.**   
**Admiring so thy dress of green,**   
**And thy petticoats of snow,**   
**The golden impudence obscene,**   
**Thrust to thy core below.**   
**But lo! Though thou this clever thief would steal,**   
**He would not for the world see thee decline,**   
**And in thy glade he bends, and stoops to kneel,**   
**So to thy ways this faithful soul resigns.**   
**No saints here found, and none are blessed but such**   
**Whose spirits quick beneath sweet lily’s touch.**

It is a reminder. It is a declaration. It is lust and love and longing - though he cannot say it. But she can read it in these lines.

She is bare, and bared to him, lying in her bed where once he joined her, and she feels the phantom press of his hands upon her skin, his lips upon her brow, his weight against her hips, and her own hand slips down beneath the sheets, creeps up her rumpled skirts, and then her fingers - cool, but growing warmer - find the folds of her sex, as velvetine as the petals of a flower slicked with dew. 

And though she knows herself, though she knows the exact angle, the precise pressure in a way he never quite mastered, her fingers are not the same as his. They are smaller, smoother. They lack the eagerness, the desire, the passion, so she reads the poem, she reads his words hoping that this paltry text will supplement her poor substitute.

She closes her eyes, and sees his form. She opens her eyes, and reads his voice. She increases her pace, and almost, _almost_ feels his touch. Here, in the dark, in her room, alone in Sundari, he is there. He is there. A small noise - a pitiful gasp choked off in its infancy - breaks from her lips.

The lamp goes on.

“Ma’am?”

The gasp retreats into her chest, chastened into a sob which is summarily killed as quickly as everything else. She withdraws her hand, patting the blankets back into lush civility, and finds her voice.

“It’s nothing, Vi’Tolan,” she murmurs. “Just attending to a few matters of business that couldn’t wait. But I’m finished now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard replies, but there’s a pause - a brief silence where Satine can hear words forming and she waits while Vi’Tolan gathers the courage to continue. When she does, her voice is soft, and young, and Satine remembers she’s hardly much older than Korkie. Twenty, perhaps. So young. “You should rest,” she says. “Please, ma’am - If you don’t mind my saying so, you ought to take better care of yourself. We need you. Your people. All of us.”

“Of course,” she says. “You’re right. I shall do better. I promise.”

She sets the device aside, and pulls the blankets higher. The lamp goes off. Vi’Tolan drops back into sleep. Satine closes her eyes.

He is gone.


	5. Sonnet

_At night, alone, I linger on regret,  
_ _And haunt the vaulted temple of my shame,  
_ _To speak with ghosts I rather should forget,  
_ _To bide with dreams that never shall I claim.  
_ _The little things which tremble in the fall  
_ _Of shadow o’er the distant stretch of time,  
_ _Its somber wings cast out to smother all,  
_ _And snatch away the meager hopes yet mine.  
_ _But through the halls and corridors of Dark,  
_ _There goes a sylph of finely fashioned Light.  
_ _She dances through the chambers of my heart,  
_ _Both root, and remedy against my plight._  
 _And though I know she’s not mine to possess,_  
 _I cannot let go, and want to even less._

_\- O.W.K._

* * *

Weeks pass, and she receives no further messages from Coruscant. This is something to be glad for, she thinks, for all the anger, and sorrow, and impossible desires the previous messages had evoked are better left to the past.

She had made her confession, and he had been unable to do the same. All he managed to offer had been a brief declaration of intent - that if she were to ask, he would be willing. And that is not at all the same thing. In this, she doesn’t want her will to rule. She doesn’t want ownership. But he bends, and bends, and bends. And that is not enough.

He speaks of the past with regret, but makes the same choices in the present. He declares impartiality, but hears no criticism. He speaks of friendship, but writes her words of...something he cannot even name. What bravery. What astonishing passion he bears, this mute lover of hers.

_He is a coward_ , she thinks, shaking off the rime of her melancholy with outrage. _He could not take what he wanted then, nor will he do so now, and I shall not be the executor of his desire. I shall not be bought with pretty words._

And so, no, she does not regret the cessation of poetry. She welcomes it.

And if she reads the ode at night, and if she hears the echo of her son in the stave, and if she sees her youth between the lines of the ballad, and if she repeats her response to the ketauta until it comes as naturally as her mother tongue, that is nothing to the peace she finds in Obi-Wan’s silence.

But, of course, the great Negotiator never did know when to shut up.

It’s a month - maybe more - long enough that when Maia mentions a message has come through on her personal pad, she doesn’t immediately think of love. This is well, because the sonnet that waits for her bears none of the high blood of previous verses.

Instead, it is resigned. It is hollow. It hangs in her chest like a rag, rung out and ragged upon the line. It is written in High Naboo.

**Kota, tolus, dusun i poenicut  
** **Ut morar i manctus verectanus  
** **Ilo ulum bulqui um aamanes  
** **Ilo hidec um sapanem sormi  
** **Pica jaturae mivor kenebru  
** **Simpus ixpalsi ulas vismarus  
** **Quis falu udas varhides ulmni  
** **It karpe ten parne ilo ipan  
** **Led vara dillus praetur dum kene  
** **Ist va sylva factus ix lucas  
** **Va korus lus iner ilo cordil  
** **Langour duc liavi ilo advat  
** **It ux ilo adikarus vara  
** **I ux rikai, ux masudi picus.**

The words are strange, but ring out in her mind like an enchantment, the rolling consonants and vowels a bare anodyne to the anguish of the poet. The form, the language - they offer comfort, soothing the ache of the confession they hide. This _is_ a confession. And this, she thinks, is as open as he’ll ever be.

Love couched in form. Sorrow buried in translation. Longing secreted in origin. 

Qui-Gon was a father to her, too. His loss was also hers.

But he never came. Never spoke of it. Never said a word. And they both had their duties, and their ideologies, and their children to sublimate their grief.

This sonnet comes far too late.

She can say nothing to him, and so she sends nothing back.

But this time, he is not satisfied. This time, he does not lapse into silence. There are no more poems, but there are messages. Half-formed thoughts. Aborted pleas.

_Satine._

_I hope you’re well._

_It was good to see you, Satine._

_You must know I still think of you._

_I think of you fondly. I think of you often._

_Satine, Satine, Satine…_

“Delete that for me, Maia,” she says, handing the pad back once more. “Would you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says the girl.

Vi’Tolan watches from the corner of her eyes, her face forward when she suggests, “Perhaps you’d like to have your code changed, ma’am? If you find these to be a trouble.”

“They are troubling, yes,” she replies with a kind smile that goes no deeper than her lips. “But not troublesome. Certainly not worth the trouble of informing every personal contact the change in my code.”

“Perhaps you could have the messenger blocked.”

Satine studies her a moment, admiring the steel in her shoulders and the naive clarity of her foresight.

“No, I think not,” she says, sparing Vi’Tolan a conciliatory pat on the shoulder.

They say nothing more about it, neither Vi’Tolan or Maia remarking as the messages continue, only dutifully deleting each one, and keeping watch for anyone who may be looking to spot a weakness in the Duchess.

Then, one day, when the sky above Sundari is blue, and bright enough that the desolate horizon is visible beyond the glass of the dome, a ship lands at the Royal Port.

“There is a man requesting an audience with you, my Lady,” says the voice, distorted and tinny on the other end of the secure link.

Satine sits on her throne, ambassadors, and diplomats of various neighbouring planets wait at her convenience while her newest interim Minister examines the fifth draft of a new trade deal beneath her supervision. She hears the call, but it is Vi’Tolan who answers.

“The Duchess is currently in court at the moment,” she says.

A pause.

“He says he’ll wait.”

“Her sessions are due to last the rest of the day.”

“He says that’s fine.”

While demands on her time are not unique, the patience of her guest is, and Satine is sufficiently distracted from her documents to ask Vi’Tolan for the man’s name.

“Who is he?” Vi’Tolan asks.

Another pause, and then a skeptical reply. “He says his name is Ben.”

“Ben what -?”

Satine brings her interrogation to a halt, resting her hand against Vi’Tolan’s forearm.

“Have the Guard escort him to my rooms,” she says. “Tell him his patience is most appreciated.”

Vi’Tolan’s eyes harden, and her fingers tense around the narrow comlink. Her voice is tight, and Satine nearly smiles at the childish disappointment in her gaze as she obediently relays the Duchess’ orders to the port authority.

Once done, Satine gives her arm a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” she says.

Vi’Tolan, however, is not so easily reassured. Before Satine can move back to her waiting Minister, she mutters her displeasure on the situation. “For the record, ma’am, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“That’s all right,” Satine replies, blithely. “I know it isn’t.”

She returns to her work, and as the hours pass she grows more and more anxious, certain that in the time she’s been refining clauses, and signing holodocs he’s found millions of excuses to leave without notice. Surely, he’s begun to second guess his decision to come. Surely, he’s begun to doubt his desire to stay. Surely, by now, he’s turned back.

But when she returns to her rooms that evening, though night has long since fallen, he’s waiting outside her door.

The twin guards assigned to his watch are dismissed, and Maia, too, to her own private quarters so rarely used, but Vi’Tolan remains stalwart at her side.

“It is my duty to protect you, ma’am,” she insists. “I swore I would not leave you undefended at any time. Not ever.”

Obi-Wan smiles, his eyes wrinkled with compassion and he executes a deep, respectful bow that has this warrior girl blushing, even as she plants her feet.

“And she shall not be,” he vows. “I, too, have sworn an oath of protection, and will take up your watch while you sleep. The Duchess shall be safe. On my life, I will defend her.”

He sweeps the fall of his dark robe over one hip, revealing the glint of bronze and silver. A lightsaber.

“You’re a Jedi,” Vi’Tolan breathes, and looks at Satine in wonder and fear. “My Lady -”

“Go now, to bed,” she instructs, and with a last look of something undefinable over her shoulder, Vi’Tolan disappears into the bunkhouse across the hall.

At last, they are alone.

Obi-Wan extends his hand. Satine holds out her own, and he escorts her across the threshold of her bedroom.

The room is dark, and her eyes struggle to adjust, while her mind plays tricks with proximity. She can hear him breathing near her, feel his heat at her back. She turns her head and the shadow of him is hardly more substantial than a dream. But then he speaks.

“I have missed you, Satine.”

She breathes deeply, counting to hold her lungs steady, and keep her heart in time. The lamp on her bedside table flickers on beneath her touch.

“I wondered,” she replies.

The light brings the relief of distance, and the renewal of uncertainty between them. He stands apart, regarding her warily, unsure of what to say or why he’s here, and she, so reluctant to let him go, is loath to help.

“Are you well?” he tenders at last.

“Quite,” she replies.

He nods. She twists her fingers together, and looks away. Upon her bed, the sheets have been turned down, and a soft, satin nightgown laid out. Beyond the high arch of the window, in the distance, the lights of the city flicker, and above them, the stars. They are the under the same stars tonight.

“It has been a very long day,” she says, for want of a more illuminating phrase. It has been a long decade. A long war. She has been very long without him, and she turns her back to him.

And he hears in it a dismissal she hadn’t meant.

“You’re right, of course,” he says. “I shouldn’t have imposed. Forgive me, Satine, I - I...Well, as long as you are safe. And well.”

His bow is short, and made shorter still as she interrupts his exit.

“Would you be so kind?”

“Excuse me?”

Along the length of her spine runs a web of invisible laces and catches, pulling her in, and forcing her body into the curves of the Lily of Mandalore. In the morning, Maia had set her hair, and arranged her angles just so, so that the weight of her dress might fall in the most pleasing lines, and the jewels of her coronet might catch the light, but she is without their aid, now, and cannot do this alone. Her pale hand floats in the dim light, gesturing at the bindings which keep her from her rest.

For a moment, the Jedi doesn’t move. Then, she casts her gaze over her shoulder, catching his own and he is galvanised into action.

“Of course,” he says, stepping to her side. His hands rest briefly atop her shoulders, but he allows himself no time for the heat of her body to touch the tips of his finger before they are moving down, untucking lace, and releasing hidden hooks and eyes from their locks with a confident dexterity.

“My,” she says, “You must have done this before.”

“Once or twice,” he replies. She can hear the smirk in his voice, and smiles in her turn.

“You’re very good at it.”

“If you’re impressed with how I handle laces, just wait until you see what I can do with knots.”

She laughs at that, then tuts, rolling her eyes. “You’re horrible,” she scolds.

The back of her corset peels away like beetle wings, the shift slipping with its absence, and he drops a kiss to the warm skin of her shoulder blade.

“No, I’m not,” he whispers.

“You have been,” she sighs back. “Hand me my nightgown?”

She slips off the coronet, and plucks out a handful of pins while Obi-Wan gathers himself behind her.

“Allow me,” he says, stepping to the bed to take the garment in hand. He turns back to her and examines her, wreathed in the light of the lamp, gilded by golden fire, her hair loose and coiled, slow to forget the shape they’d been practicing all day. “Please.”

She tilts her chin, and extends her hand, and he takes it in his own with all the reverence of some ancient ceremony. He brings her fingers to his lips, anointing each one with a kiss, then slides one hand beneath her elbow for support, while the other starts at her shoulder, and folds the fabric down. It rolls across her skin, the embroidery coarse but not enough to leave a mark. And Obi-Wan is very careful. With one arm free, he starts on the next, and with that too removed, the heavy bodice falls to the floor at her feet, the skirt pooling around her ankles.

Using his hand for support, she steps free of that cloth, and nearer to Obi-Wan, so near she has to tilt her neck to catch his eyes, so near that she can see his tongue flick out to wet his lips, and if she breathes deeply enough, her chest might touch his own.

They stare at each other, saying nothing, and without breaking from her gaze, he places his hands upon her shoulders, and drags them down her arms, peeling off the last layer of her simple synthcloth shift, and leaving her absolutely bare under his eyes.

He swallows drily, and looks at her as though she were a spring that may slake his thirst but for that she is frozen. She can feel herself lean forward, pulled by his gravity, even as he closes his eyes, and braces himself against her, with one hand lying chaste, high upon her hip.

“Obi-Wan?” she asks for him. He shakes his head. His mouth falls open but he makes no reply.

And so, instead of falling, she steps close to him, slipping her arms beneath his own, and bearing him up. He collapses in the warmth of her embrace, like a dying star, and she holds him, rocking them gently as he breathes against her hair.

“I’ve missed you,” he says.

“I know.”

“I sent you poems. Little things. Nothing really, but I thought you might - did you receive them?”

“Yes,” she says. Her voice is muffled in the folds of his robes, and she nestles deeper still until his body encompasses her completely, and holds back the night’s chill.

He waits a moment, fearful even now. Especially now.

“Why didn’t you reply?”

“Oh, Obi,” she says. She leans out of the embrace, and runs her palm over the coarse growth of his beard. “What should I have said?”

Once more, he’s lost for words, flailing for an answer he’d rather she provide for him, until he shrugs, defeated and retreats, dropping his hands to her waist.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “Anything, I think.”

There’s something just over her shoulder that must contain more truth than she does, because he stares at it bleakly, avoiding her gaze. That will never do. She wraps her hands in his cloak and draws him near, kissing the underside of his jaw, as she says, “A woman can only have so many poems dedicated to her, sir. At some point, she’d much prefer to have the poet.”

A huff. A small gust of surprised laughter, and he rewards her clever mouth with the press of his own.

“Well,” he says. “I am here now.”

“You are,” she says. But she doesn’t ask him to stay.

Instead, his clothes join hers, and they stumble into her bed, its cold, crisp sheets turning warm and wrinkled beneath their bodies. They are both eager, desperate, and frightened. His hands leave bruises, and her nails leave scratches, and then, across his back, she feels more lines, and deeper. There are new scars.

“Wait, wait -” she breathes, her mouth tasting of his, though he doesn’t listen, flicking his tongue across her throat, and sucking up little marks that will fade before dawn. “Obi, _wait.”_

“What is it?” he asks, his hair hanging before his eyes, burnished copper in the glow of light.

“Your back,” she says.

It seems that he must stop breathing, he goes so still. He doesn’t blink, he doesn’t move, just staring at her as he hovers above, for an age. Then, he turns aside, and collapses, falling beside her, his knees curled and facing away.

She too, hesitates, as though uncertainty is catching, but he has knowingly left himself open to her, even if he cannot face it. With more bravery than she feels, she reaches out to stroke his back. Thick ridges, and hardened tissue rise and fall beneath her palms as she sweeps from the span of his shoulders, down the arc of his spine, and to his flanks where he jumps by instinct at her touch.

“What happened?”

“Nothing much,” he says. “Nothing much. Please, let’s not talk about it.”

“This needs treatment, or it will scar -”

“It has been treated. I’m alright. It was just left...too long, I suppose.”

“Obi-Wan,” she says. “Obi-Wan, tell me.”

He says nothing, but she knows that doesn’t mean he does not speak. His voice comes out in other ways. In the tilt of his head, the twist of his mouth, in little gestures, and obscure expressions. In poems. In turning back so that their eyes meet again.

“It is over, now,” he whispers, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“This is why I didn’t reply,” she confesses. “Because I don’t know what to say to someone who will not tell me what he needs. I thought, after all this time, my silence might be best.”

“Satine -”

“But nothing heals in silence. Only sickness grows.”

He considers this, not quite convinced, and half-distracted with memorising the planes of her face by touch, leaving his thumb to rest against her lips. 

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he says. “I didn’t want to hurt you with knowledge of something you cannot change. I wanted you to stay happy.”

“Ben, you are my -” She cannot say that. So instead, “I cannot be happy if you suffer in silence. Your hurts hurt me, yes, but an open wound may be healed. You know this. You see it on the battlefield. What can be triaged can be treated. But when you keep it hidden, when you let it fester -”

“I do not,” he protests. “I let it go. I give it over to the Force. But that is my burden, not yours.”

She regards him for a moment. His eyes are clear, and earnest in his assurance, but beneath her palm his heart races, and once more, she relents. Belief is so scarce these days, hope so rare, and faith so easily crumbles in war that she cannot bear to be the one who takes that from him.

She closes her eyes, and leans forward to tuck her head beneath his chin, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, and her hips to his thigh. 

“My heart breaks when you bear it alone,” she murmurs into the hollow of his clavicle, then kisses him there to soothe the sting of her words against his skin.

“I am never alone,” he insists. 

_I am_ , she thinks, and she feels it, even as his fingers card through the warp of her hair with all the gentle dexterity of any craftsman.

“We are not friends, Obi-Wan,” she says. “This is not what friends do.”

“No.”

“And yet, I do not know what more I can give you because I don’t know what you want.”

“Tonight,” he says. “Just tonight, I swear.”

She sighs, and tips her head to beg a kiss.

"Tonight," she says. "I am yours, tonight."

Though her eyes are closed, she knows he will meet her halfway, judging the angle by instinct, and the distance by practice. The timing is a matter of faith.

But he doesn’t make her wait.

His lips are warm against hers, and she yields to the pressure of his tongue, the greed of his appetite. He so rarely asks for anything, and she too is hungry. An urgency builds within her again, and she runs with it. She can feel time slipping already, she can feel him turning away. He’s nearly halfway gone. And so she wraps a leg around his, throws her arms across his shoulders, and tumbles herself beneath him. 

He laughs as his arms give out under the unexpected force of her desire, and she smiles against his teeth, tightening her embrace. There has never been anything so comforting as the weight of him upon her breast. He is as close as she can have him before she becomes part of him, before she is lost. In this moment, she can catalogue his essence. The ice of his bare toes beneath the arch of her foot, the rasp of his hair against the satin of her calf, his length hard and honest in the crook of her loins, the vulnerable expanse of his belly flexing and relaxing against her own, his chest hard, bearing heavily against her, sinking her into the mattress, unyielding but for the inhalation and exhalation of invisible vapours that ensure life goes on and on and on marked out by the turn of the world, the gradual fading of memory, and the beat of his heart beside hers.

Her melancholy must echo against something empty and hollow in him, like a bell, because he pulls back and studies her, too. 

“Satine,” he says. It is the beginning of a sentence, but also the middle, and the end. It is everything, and yet nothing. He can say no more.

So she smiles, bright and shining, and pulls him down.

He gives himself over willingly, and if his surrender is not complete, it is the best that he can do. And she will take it. For her surrender is equally finite.

In a week, he is dead.

And she rules Mandalore alone.


	6. NOTES & POEMS

AH! So, I realised that not every chapter contained the entirety of Obi-Wan’s poems, and it’s only fair that his full repertoire of seduction technique be available. Freedom of information, and all. The Jedi are a publicly funded organisation, etc., etc..

Plus, like, I worked hard on these. So please enjoy Obi-Wan’s iphone texts.

* * *

**STEWJON (Katuata and Sedoka) 1**

Alone the sun leaps **A-saiyo ge’hai  
** A fruit sweet, and heavy high **Amai-ku, sho kyoama  
** And hunger wakes to meet it **Da-ue ne g’ae**

Then sate thy hunger **Wan-ue manyi  
** On fruit ripened in absence **Amai wa’mesorasu** _**  
**_ At night we feast together. **Ish-tabue wohban**

So the premise was each of these poems would have a form specific to their planet of origin, and each planet would hold some significance to Satine and Obi-Wan. He isn’t very great at speaking openly, but he is a talented linguist, and a cunning wordsmith, so he puts into poetry all the meaning that he can’t put into frank conversation.

Satine, of course, being educated in both galactic literature, politics, and the inner workings of Obi-Wan Kenobi, would be - probably - the only person who could read these, and understand what Obi-Wan is trying to say. Anakin doesn’t like poetry. Qui-Gon...well...you know.

So Satine is the only person he can confess like this to. She’s the only person who will hear him when he speaks in the only language he can permit himself.

This first poem is a Katauta.

In my mind, Stewjon is space Japan (mixed with a little feudal England), so this “traditional Stewjoni form” is essentially a Japanese one. According to the interwebs: a **Katauta** is a Japanese poetic form that consists of 17 or 19 syllables arranged in three lines of either 5, 7, and 5 or 5, 7, and 7 syllables. The form was used for poems addressed to a lover, and a single _katauta_ was considered incomplete or a half-poem. A pair of _katauta_ s of the 5,7,7 type were called a _sedōka_ ; the 5,7,5 _katauta_ may have been the top part of the early [ tanka ](https://www.britannica.com/art/tanka-Japanese-poetry). Exchanges of such poems made up a longer question-and-answer poem. The form was rarely used after about the 8th century AD.

Thus, this is the initial poem that Obi-Wan wrote for Satine when first tentatively courting her during their year on the run. In the context of Star Wars, the Stewjoni people tender Katautas as an offer of romance, which can be refused with dignity or accepted gladly with a corresponding stanza.

If it is positively received, the reply transforms the incomplete Katauta into a Sedoka, as was the case of Obi-Wan and Satine (initially).

This is the complete verse, including Satine’s...risque response.

  
FUN FACT: Obi-Wan's mother's name means "hunger"

* * *

**LIRA 2**

If you in youth my love returned **Yo** **ś¨i** **nä nuoruus** **¨** **ka** **î** **ma li** **aër** **  
** And so my own did tell **Lu** **ś** **in** **an¨åm** **æ  
** Then though we are yet parted now **Vaikka næ olemm** **å** **eros** **¨** **sa  
** Be safe, and be you well. **Liä na ma¨ræ**

If seasons came and went along **Yos t** **¨** **yar** **älipu** **autaa et  
** Until the evening fell **I** **l¨** **a** **î** **n** **ś** **o ma** **î** **laant** **æ  
** In going first, I leave you with **Mæ lähdiin** **î** **n** **¨** **s** **å** **n, n¨ami** **ś** **in  
** Be safe, and be you well **Liä na ma¨ræ**

If I were flung to wild parts **Yos mæ ettäis** **å** **n i¨matoaa  
** No more near you to dwell **Na s** **å** **n tuulo hæ  
** Then from the lonely distance call, **Mæ** **ś** **oi** **¨** **ai** **ś** **in tuu** **¨** **ka** **¨** **a  
** Be safe, and be you well. **Liä na ma¨ræ**

If hung you from another arm **Yos inä ol** **î** **toi** **ś** **¨i** **dan**  
Though my heart would rebel **Sydäma¨i rimæ**  
Yet still would I upon you bless **Mukaa¨ma** **ś** **il¨aan** **s** **iona**  
Be safe, and be you well. **Liä na ma¨ræ**

And if there is a higher cause **A** **¨y** **os on korke** **¨** **m** **äi** **s** **å** **ra  
** That elsewhere does compel **Ma** **¨** **ma** **ś** **täy mennä g** **æ  
** Then let my final words be yours **Viim** **ś** **iet mæ¨ovat sinua beth  
** Be safe, and be you well. **Liä na ma¨ræ**

This is a less complicated poem. A simple ballad. However, the mythology behind it I shamelessly stole from  treescape , and her story "and you write me of love".

She is responsible for the beautiful language (which is a mixture of Finnish and ….Sindarin), for creating Qui-Gon’s homeworld of Lira, and also for the phrase “Liä na ma¨ræ”. It’s meant to be lyrical, and beautiful, falling naturally into an easy rhythm, much like Qui-Gon himself feels the flow of the Force.

Obi-Wan uses this poem as his second appeal in an effort to remind Satine of when they first met, while still implying that it’s okay if she leaves...obviously, he’s full of shit, but then, like...that’s how exes be, sometimes.

He’s reminding her of Qui-Gon, who binds them together in a shared, platonic way, but also of her own early declarations to him. This time, he’s not begging a response, he’s reminding her of the one she already gave him. He doesn't give her the opportunity to choose her response - he supplies it for her. It's pretty pushy, tbh. 

* * *

**MANDALORE Burns Stanza 3**

My heart a bloody blossom blooming, **Ner kar'ta tal'sarad sarad'la/  
** So spit upon her kal consuming **kadiilir d'kaysh kal epar'la/  
** But lo! The drum is soon resuming **su susulur te laar par taab'la/  
** Beating out its part **laaran te miite/  
** A flower fair the air perfuming **go'klesin dinuir t'sarad mesh'la/  
** Love hath pierced my heart. **kair'kaysh ner kar'ta.**

Alright, so, I know there’s a LOT of well-earned controversy around Mando culture, its origins, and whitewashing - which I completely agree with. However, I didn’t want to just have space Sweden appropriate Polynesian art out of hand.

So I went with the K*ren Traviss thing. She said that she based a lot of her Mando culture on the Picts. Well, the Picts weren’t so hot on written poetry, so the closest approximation I could find was the Burn’s Stanza/Habbie Stanza/Six-Line Stave.

This is about as close to “traditional Scottish poetry” as you’re gonna find, and was made hugely popular by Robbie Burns, with poems such as “Ode to a Mouse.”

Of course, Mandalore being Mandalore, their in-verse poetry is often riddled with blood and violence, equating love and passion with more of the same. And while Satine does appreciate Obi-Wan’s knowledge and acknowledgement of her culture, it’s...kind of in bad taste to send this to a devoted Pacifist.

But he’s an idiot, so…  
  
ALSO NOTE: Yeah, whatever, I’m here for Korkie Kenobi, and so is Obi-Wan even if he doesn’t know it. The last line of his stanza just coincidentally uses the word “kair’kaysh” which is similar to the endearment “kih’kairkyic”, and the origin of Korkie’s full name, Kiorkicek. So, to Satine, who’s intentionally looking for meaning in these poems, this hits especially hard.

* * *

**CORUSCANT Pindaric Ode/Spurious Pindaric 4**

Awake! And lift thy sleeping head,  
In fair salute unto that sovereign sole,  
Whose **quick passions spill** a blushing red, _(someone is eager)_  
So eager He thy beauties to extol.  
And Nature, whom Herself begat you  
Is **stained with envy of thy grace** _(Nature is green with envy, but also fertility)_  
Which starry climes upon thy lifted face  
Press their kissing lips of dew.  
For all the beauty of the world is found  
Petaled soft in thy milky gown.

Thou art of all Light’s flora blessed  
Yet rather spurn such holy compliment  
Thy roots embracing a more common rest  
In clay and dust, and here thou art content  
To bear the wounds of unhappy fate  
So wrought by winds and mournful rains  
And still, with stalk upstanding thou remains  
Fixed against the storms of hate.  
In glade thou grow resolved, thy virtue bright  
Illumining the **lonely night**. _(This isn’t dirty, just a pun on night/knight - he’s outing himself)_

Which sacred force did think it wise  
To leave **thee bare** to mortal eyes _(She’s naked)_  
Planted in thy **untilled bed** _(_ _A virginal bed)_  
 **Velvet folds to heaven spread** _(_ _Lying on her back, her labia exposed)_  
And lifted to the sky  
Yet low the pilgrim’s hand which stirs thee soft  
In **plucking he might bring thee off.** _(In fingering, he’ll bring her to orgasm)_  
Admiring so thy **dress of green** _(A green dress implies grass stains from being fucked_ _on the ground)_  
And thy **petticoats of snow** _(Underwear - he likes how she looks well-fucked,_ _and in lingerie)_  
The golden **impudence obscene** _(“impudence” is s_ _lang for penis)_  
 **Thrust through thy core below**. _(_ _PIV sex - he likes how she looks under him)_  
But lo! Though thou this clever thief would steal  
He would not for the world see thee decline  
And in thy glade he bends, and stoops to kneel.  
So to thy ways this faithful soul resigns  
No saints here found, and none are blessed but such  
Whose **spirits quick beneath sweet lily’s touch** _(She gets him hard)_

Ah, the ode. I will never write another one. When looking for traditional forms for Coruscant, I was like, “Oh! Obviously - the seat of democracy and the Republic would use something Greek/Roman!” Ergo, a Pindaric Ode.

But these are annoying af to write. The Pindaric ode in particular is a form that was popularised by the English in like, idk, the 18th century...but they didn’t understand the traditional form, and so it’s not ACTUALLY accurate to the true structure of Pindar’s historical odes. Which is just...typical. But I thought, ah, the current decadence of the corrupt Republic has probably bastardised their own history as well, so, a Pindaric ode via English culture it is.

And this is Obi-Wan’s filthiest message. This is a sext, friends. A refined one, but I spent a long time looking up FILTHY EUPHEMISMS so please, please take note and appreciate these notations.

* * *

**NABOO Sonnet 5**

  
  


At night, alone, I linger on regret, **Kota, tolus, dusun i poenicut  
** And haunt the vaulted temple of my shame, **Ut morar i manctus verectanus  
** To speak with ghosts I rather should forget, **Ilo ulum bulqui um aamanes  
** To bide with dreams that never shall I claim. **Ilo hidec um sapanem sormi  
** The little things which tremble in the fall **Pica jaturae mivor kenebrus  
** Of shadow o’er the distant stretch of time, **Simpus ixpalsi ulas vismarus  
** Its somber wings cast out to smother all, **Quis falu udas varhides ulmni  
** And snatch away the meager hopes yet mine. **It karpe ten parne ilo ipan  
** But through the halls and corridors of Dark, **Led vara dillus praetur dum kene  
** There goes a sylph of finely fashioned Light **Ist va sylva factus ix lukas  
** She dances through the chambers of my heart, **Va korus lus iner ilo cordil  
** Both root, and remedy against my plight. **Langour duc liavi ilo advat  
** And though I know she’s not mine to possess **It ux ilo adikarus vara  
** I cannot let go, and want to even less. **I ux rikai, ux masudi picus**

  
  


And finally, the sonnet. I’d already established sonnets as a traditional Naboo form in another story, and I was like, yeah, lets keep it. Naboo also has at least two different ancient languages it pulls from, but this is written in Old High Naboo, which had some religious connotations.

For Obi-Wan, this final poem is an act of worship. It’s pure, it’s honest, it’s holy. And it’s the most open he can be with her. 

Naboo, because it’s where his shared connection with Satine was severed in a way, with Qui-Gon’s death. To some extent, they both lost their father there, and the person who was responsible for bringing them together. Obi-Wan hasn’t talked about it with her, so the fact that he’s using this form to confess both his regrets, his shame, and his grief is about more than his generalised sorrow. It’s very specifically about how he feels his failure as a Padawan, and a Jedi, and how he might have made a different choice with her. 

The idea of the Temple being a place haunted with ghosts he’s supposed to let go of, but then there, at the core, in the most secret of places, he keeps this image of her and she’s in some ways, his essence, his salvation, and his hope. There’s an extra foot in the final couplet because (as suggested by treescapes), he cannot let go of Satine, and he cannot let go of this verse. He feels it as a weakness, an example of attachment…(but for the record, and from Satine’s POV, this is love, and Obi-Wan is just shit at telling the difference. Repeated trauma will do that to you.)


End file.
